Firstfruits and Pentacost are the First Day of the Week

I already did a post about people like Rob Skiba who are now trying to say The Resurrection happened on The Sabbath, and every time you see “Week” in the New Testament it should be translated Sabbath.

Part of my response was simply pointing to the Feast of Firstfruits, and regardless of the accuracy of the usual ways Christians justify connecting that to the Resurrection, which I’ll get into latter, it does show that the “Sunday” after Passover is important for something.  Likewise with Pentecost which indisputably fell on the same day of the week seven weeks later.

I have not yet seen someone try to argue that we’re misreading Leviticus 23:9-22 and that Firstfruits was on the Sabbath not the day after.  But I want to prepare in advance for anyone who might try to.

In the King James English of Leviticus 23:9-22 I could see someone looking at “morrow” and thinking it means morning and consider that the intent might have been to say the morning of the Sabbath.  But no one who really knows the Hebrew would make that mistake.

There are a few different words translated “Morning” (some might refer to the Sunrise itself while others to a broader time frame) none of them are what’s translated “morrow” here.  This word is also sometimes translated “tomorrow”, it means the day following something.  So even when the YLT chooses to render it "morrow of the Sabbath" that language still means the day after, however that YLT wording is bad, I like YLT often but this mistake is embarrassing.

The Rabbinic Jewish reckoning of it being the 16th of Nisan is based on saying the Sabbath meant here is the 15th of Nisan as a special Sabbath.  But Leviticus 23 doesn’t describe the 15th of Nisan as a Sabbath, it only calls these special days of rest Sabbaths for the Tishri days, which I think might have to do with Tishri being the Seventh Month.  I would say to both this view and the Lunar Sabbath view that if the intent was for this always to fall the same day of the Month, God would have just said that as He did for other days in the same chapter.

But that’s not what I’m dealing with today.  These Sabbath Resurrection people could instead say following similar logic to what I just used “why didn’t God simply say First Day of the Week?”  The difference is identifying things by a day of the Week is not as common in the Torah’s terminology as using the Day of the Month is, and is mostly only used in defining The Sabbath itself in Genesis 1&2 and Exodus 16.

Firstfruits and Pentecost are the first and last days of a period of fifty days.  And we’re also clearly told there were only seven Sabbaths within that fifty days.  If Firstfruits and Pentecost were on Sabbaths then Pentecost would be the Eight Sabbath not the morrow after the seventh.

Now lesser then this error is the claim of Wednesday Crucifixion supporters that Jesus Rose while it was still the Sabbath but the Women found the Tomb Empty on Sunday/Firstfruits.  To me however a careful reading of Matthew 28 and Mark 16:2&9 shows Jesus Rose at Sunrise.  I believe He rested on The Sabbath.

Now what can be confusing is what Firstfruits means.  Throughout the Hebrew Bible the many places you see Firstfruits or “first fruits” in English are not always exactly the same in Hebrew.  Sometimes it’s two words and sometimes it's one, and at least 3 different words are used.  But only two of them appear in Leviticus 23:9-22 and neither of them is a word that actually means fruit. 

The Spring feasts are mostly about the Wheat or Grain Harvest. the harvest of the fruits comes later.  A Hebrew word for Fruit is used in Leviticus 23:40 (translated "boughs" in the KJV) talking about Tabernacles in the Seventh Month.  That’s why we know this is the time of the Grape Harvest (Revelation 14).

The New Testament references to Firstfruits don’t have such variety in the Greek however, they are in verses that all use aparch or aparche, and it doesn’t etymologically actually refer to fruit either.  My break down of the Greek Etymology of the word leads to me conclude it's equivalent to the Hebrew word translated Firstfruits in Leviticus 23:10 rather then Bikkurim which is more directly associated with Pentecost.  And the Septuagint Translation agrees with that, I would never base a theory solely on the Septuagint but I'm glad this one lines up. 

Most times the New Testament uses this word (especially Paul) it’s about the subject of the Resurrection, but exactly how kind of varies.  In 1 Corinthians 15:20-23 Jesus is the Firstfruits of the Resurrection, so in that context unique of His Resurrection.  But Romans 8:23 and 11:15-16 seem to use it of all the Resurrected, or all of the "First Resurrection" at least.  And in my view Revelation 14:4 uses it of the 144 Thousand resurrected.  But even if not every NT use of Firstfurits is about Resurrection, in 1 Corinthians 15 it's definitely about how Jesus fits into The Resurrection as a whole.

None of these verses are for the purpose of saying when Jesus Rose.  But since that seems to be when anyway, it works.

This Sun Worship paranoia from people like Rob Skiba who support the Mazzaroth and using Virgo to interpret Revelation 12 I find highly hypocritical.  Malachi 4 calls Jesus the Sun (Shamash) of Rightness, and Mark 16’s account of the Resurrection specifically refers to Sunrise.

But more important than that, the “First day of the Week” wasn’t a Sun Worship day when the New Testament was written.  Originally the Greeks and Romans didn’t have a Seven Day Week, there is no evidence of them being aware of the idea until they made contact with the Jews.  That’s why the New Testament doesn’t use the modern Greek word for Week, because it wasn’t coined yet.  The first Greco-Roman references to the idea of a seven day week involve them saying the Sabbath is the day to Worship Saturn/Kronos because they identified the Jewish and the Pagan Semitic El with Saturn/Kronos.

So the first day of the Week became Sunday because of people associating Jesus with the Sun, not the other way around. 

I will say this.  The Triumphal Entry is never referred to as being on the first day of the week.  Now it might be a detailed breakdown of the timeline of the Gospels can show it probably did happen the same day of the week as the Resurrection a week earlier.  But typologically I believe it happened on the 10th of Nisan when the Passover Lamb was presented.  So people commemorating the Passion using a Hebrew Calendar should keep it on that day not a day of the week. 

A Thursday Crucifixion on the 14th Model would fit the 10th falling on Sunday.  But people emotionally invested in a Friday Crucifixion model should change it to Palm Monday.  Sometimes the resurrection of Lazarus is estimated to be the previous day, though John 11 actually seems to imply more of a gap.  I’ve often been attracted to associating the events of John 11 with Purim.  What John 12 places the day before the Triumphal entry is Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus and Judas throwing a fit over it.